In the month of July, I take a look at films released in my very favorite film stock and aspect ratio: black & white in anamorphic. Unless they’re being financed with credit cards, movies are rarely shot like this anymore because they’re impossible to sell to television. Yet these dreams sneak onto Turner Classic Movies every now and again …

Hud (1963)
Directed by Martin Ritt
Screenplay by Irving Ravetch & Harriet Frank Jr., based on the novel Horseman, Pass By by Larry McMurtry
Produced by Irving Ravetch, Martin Ritt
112 minutes

More of a chamber piece than a symphonic event, Martin Ritt’s lush adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s debut 1961 novel Horseman, Pass By is a finely tuned frontier opera, pitched against character, environment and morality rather than the stale conventions of the western genre. Screenwriter-producer Irving Ravetch adapted The Long, Hot Summer and The Sound and the Fury with his wife Harriet Frank Jr. and pulled McMurtry’s novel off an airport paperback rack during a layover in Dallas. Along with Ritt and Paul Newman — his partners in Salem Productions — Ravetch sold Paramount on the project. Riffing off alternate titles suggested by McMurtry, the filmmakers selected Hud. Two weeks of location shooting would commence July 1962 in Amarillo, Texas while interiors and rear projection were shot on the Paramount lot in Hollywood over four weeks.

The remarkable thing about Hud is how grounded it is. The action is limited to a bar brawl, livestock quarantine and one character passing away. While changes were made to McMurtry’s novel — the role of the housekeeper was expanded and sexual tension heightened between her and Hud — the story feels natural as opposed to being hopped up with froth. It’s given an edge by Newman’s dedication to playing one of the screen’s great bad boys, an irredeemable bastard who starts out no-good and ends that way, without lessons or hugs. Elmer Bernstein’s musical score is sparse but powerful, relying on little more than a Spanish guitar, while nearly everyone else in the production received Academy Award nominations. Taking home richly deserved Oscars were Patricia Neal (Best Actress), Melvyn Douglas (Best Supporting Actor) and James Wong Howe (Best Cinematography).

As the sun rises in the Texas Panhandle, 17-year-old Lonnie Bannon (Brandon de Wilde) hitchhikes into town in search of his hell raising uncle Hud. Locating his uncle’s pink Cadillac parked outside the abode of a married woman, Lonnie rousts Hud Bannon (Paul Newman) with news that his grandfather needs to see him. Escaping just as the woman’s husband makes it home, Hud and Lonnie return to the family ranch, where live-in housekeeper Alma Brown (Patricia Neal) cares for the men. Hud’s father Homer Bannon (Melvyn Douglas) takes the boys out to inspect a heifer that’s been found dead. Homer is barely able to conceal contempt for his only surviving son — who’s more focused on his nightlife than the condition of their livestock — and remains watchful when young Lonnie starts spending more time with Hud.

Homer calls in a government vet to inspect the dead heifer and is instructed to start gathering his herd; if tests come back positive for foot and mouth disease, every animal on the ranch will have to be liquidated, even if it means a catastrophic financial loss for the Bannons. Hud suggests selling the herd before the results come back, but his father’s principles prevent him from even considering such a thing. Feeling embittered, Hud starts looking for legal means to wrest control of the ranch out from under the old man. He also turns his charm on Alma, a self-sufficient divorcee who hasn’t responded to Hud’s flirtations, but hasn’t exactly dissuaded them either. Waiting for the vet to decide on the fate of the ranch, Homer’s health declines, Hud and Alma draw closer to a confrontation and Lonnie struggles to become his own man.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 1,934 users: 86% for Hud

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes.

Here’s Part 2 of a bill featuring high tech conspiracies in L.A.

Blue Thunder (1983)
Directed by John Badham
Written by Dan O’Bannon & Don Jakoby and Dean Riesner (uncredited)
Produced by Gordon Carroll
109 minutes

There haven’t been many movies about the LAPD’s Air Support Division. That might be due to logistics, or maybe the best picture you could possibly make in that milieu has already been done: Blue Thunder. Screenwriter Dan O’Bannon was so incensed by the ghetto bird buzzing his L.A. abode that he was inspired to write a thriller — with USC Film School buddy Don Jakoby — about a Travis Bickle type going AWOL in a police helicopter above the City of Angels. Columbia Pictures loved the ballistic third act, the crazed lone nut in the first and second acts not so much, prompting rewrites in which the LAPD became good guys and government spooks were invented as bad guys. O’Bannon & Jakoby at the time lambasted the finished film, a box office hit that inspired two TV series in the ‘80s; Airwolf on CBS and the short lived Blue Thunder on ABC, one even cheesier than the other.

Blue Thunder is wound like a Swiss watch and designed with almost the same level of craftsmanship, briskly introducing us to Los Angeles, the rigmarole of the Air Support Division (dubbed “Astro Division” in the film to avoid hate mail flooding the LAPD) and issues of privacy on the approach to the year 1984. The action is set up gracefully and executed tenaciously, while a post-Watergate malaise gives the film an edge. John Alonzo’s lighting and Arthur Rubenstein’s electronic score were cutting edge for their time and hold up well, while the casting is superb. It’s easy to forget how strong a leading man Roy Scheider was, while the magnificent Warren Oates — in his final movie — chews up scenery like a buzzsaw. Director John Badham shot the film back-to-back with WarGames and was in a zone, fusing high concept, high tech, compelling characters and fun without crossing over into cartoon.

Maverick police helicopter pilot Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider) breaks in a new partner, the baby faced Richard Lymangood (Daniel Stern) who’s transferred over for some supposed peace and quiet in the haze above Los Angeles. While the men spy on a yoga practitioner in Encino known to perform in the nude, a city commissioner is attacked outside her home in Brentwood and shot. Reprimanded for his flight patterns by the loquacious Captain Braddock (Warren Oates), Murphy contends that the attack on the city commissioner was no attempted rape but a stakeout. A Vietnam vet compressed with PTSD, Murphy makes up with his oddball girlfriend (Candy Clark) and returns to the crime scene, where a memo he retrieves from the commissioner’s lawn has the cryptic word THOR written on it.

Assigned a special detail, Murphy accompanies Braddock and two feds to the demonstration of a prototype helicopter designed for crowd control in the Los Angeles ’84 Summer Olympics. “Blue Thunder” is equipped with a 20mm gun turret, turbine boost, whisper mode and surveillance devices that see and hear through walls. The test pilot is Colonel Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), a nefarious operator Murphy knew in ‘Nam. In an attempt to rub out his competition, Cochrane sabotages Murphy’s chopper. Staying alive long enough to take Blue Thunder for a test spin, Murphy and Lymangood discover the feds have big plans for THOR (Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response), instigating social unrest in L.A. to justify military expenditures. Framed by Cochrane and the feds running the project, Murphy commandeers their toy and takes to the friendly skies.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 147 users: 65% for Blue Thunder

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes.

Here’s Part 1 of a bill featuring high tech conspiracies in L.A.

The Star Chamber (1983)
Directed by Peter Hyams
Screenplay by Roderick Taylor and Peter Hyams, story by Roderick Taylor
Produced by Frank Yablans
109 minutes

Though Michael Douglas had played opposite Geneviève Bujold in Coma and Jane Fonda in The China Syndrome, uncovering conspiracies in the healthcare and energy sectors, the producer and actor took a step toward becoming a movie star with The Star Chamber, an unabashed B-movie of the type that used to star Richard Widmark or Sterling Hayden when movies titled Panic In the Streets or Crime Wave played the bottom half of the bill. With an irresistible plot involving Superior Court judges rendering their own justice whenever the law gets in the way, The Star Chamber is a Dirty Harry picture for people who can read without moving their lips. Equipped with way more intrigue and drenched with far greater suspense than required, when it comes to audience appreciation, this movie overachieves.

Co-star Hal Holbrook — Old Man Conspiracy in Magnum Force and The Firm — calling Michael Douglas “kiddo” isn’t the only thing that dates The Star Chamber like a vintage coat. While Sharon Gless makes a refined impression in her three scenes, no time is wasted on a romantic lead or subplots that don’t relate to the one we paid a ticket for: judges delegating vigilante justice. The script keeps most of its nuts and bolts out of view, remaining plausible by letting the audience’s imagination do most of the work. Adapted and directed by Peter Hyams, the film has credible dialogue, solid performances, elegant set pieces and is cloaked in the sinister shadow that Hyams would execute as his own director of photography on 2010, Narrow Margin and The Relic. The Star Chamber is the director at his most soldered.

Detectives (Larry Hankin, Dick Anthony Williams) on the hunt for a serial robber and killer in South Los Angeles spot a suspect drop something into his garbage can. Lacking a warrant to conduct a legal search, the cops wait for trash collectors to dump the contents of the can into a garbage truck’s scoop, where they retrieve the murder weapon. At trial, Superior Court Judge Steven Hardin (Michael Douglas) is given no choice but rule the evidence, subsequent search and confession inadmissible on a technicality. Lamenting the miscarriage of justice to his mentor Judge Caulfield (Hal Holbrook), Hardin’s next case forces him to set free two suspected child murderers (Joe Regalbuto, Don Calfa) when LAPD officers (Charles Hallahan, David Proval) produce crucial evidence in an illegal search.

The father (James B. Sikking) of the murder victim opens fire on the suspects in court. Visiting the man in jail, Hardin learns that the body of another boy has been found after he set the suspects free. While Detective Harry Lowes (Yaphet Kotto) begins pursuing leads, Hardin approaches Caulfield, who has tantalized his protégé with hints of doing something about his frustration with the legal system. He invites Hardin to join a panel of nine superior court judges who comprise “a court of last resort”, reviewing cases dismissed on technicality and employing their own executioner to carry out sentences. While Hardin’s child murder defendants are soon found “guilty” by the panel, Detective Lowes produces information that the men really were innocent. Unable to cancel the “sentencing”, Hardin takes matters into his own hands and risks exposing the judges.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 5 users: 80% for The Star Chamber

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes.

Here’s Part 1 of a bill featuring super heroines.

Supergirl (1984)
Directed by Jeannot Szwarc
Screenplay by David Odell, based on the character appearing in comics and magazines published by DC Comics
Produced by Timothy Burrrill
124 minutes (international version)/ 114 minutes (U.S. theatrical version)

Years before anyone had heard of Comic Con or knew what a “fanboy” was, Alexander and Ilya Salkind gambled $35 million — roughly $140 million in today money — that audiences would welcome an expansion of the DC Comics universe with a girl powered spin-off of their Superman film franchise that starred Christopher Reeve. Warner Bros. changed their minds about producing Supergirl and though TriStar agreed to distribute the picture in the U.S., when critics and audiences got a look at it in November 1984 the response was so middling that the Salkinds got out of the Superman business. A trifle silly and very definitely flawed, Supergirl doesn’t fly as high as Richard Donner’s Superman or Superman II, but it stacks up as the best super heroine adaptation anyone’s made yet (Barbarella, Red Sonja, Catwoman and Elektra are the also-rans).

It isn’t required that you be an 8-year-old girl or collect My Little Pony to enjoy the charms of Supergirl, but it probably wouldn’t hurt. Those who venture further are likely to find Supergirl’s sorceress adversary and the hunk they covet to both be super silly. Mysteries such as how Supergirl changes into her costume are left unanswered, but director Jeannot Szwarc evokes some of the charm of Hans Christian Andersen; contrary to the line on Supergirl, it’s no more campy than The Little Mermaid is campy. The picture is as lavish as it is elegant, with a triumphant musical score by Jerry Goldsmith, a candy color look by Alan Hume and spectacular crane and wire work, each and every one as astounding as anything in Superman. 19-year-old Helen Slater and costume designed by Emma Porteous are a sight to stop a train.

On the satellite world of Argo City, Kara Zor-El (Helen Slater) visits Zaltar (Peter O’Toole), an architect who has “borrowed” the city’s energy source, an orb known as an omegahedron that creates the illusion of life. When the orb is lost in the vastness of innerspace, Kara hops aboard an innerstellar capsule to retrieve it. On Earth, the omegahedron falls into the hands of a would-be sorceress named Selena (Faye Dunaway), who lives in an abandoned amusement park with her daffy sidekick (Brenda Vaccaro). On Earth, the blonde haired Kara discovers physical and intellectual abilities comparable to those of her cousin Superman. To fit in, she disguises herself as a brunette student named Linda Lee and enrolls in “Midvale High School” in Illinois.

Sharing a dorm room with Lucy Lane (Mauren Teefy) — kid sister of Lois Lane — Linda develops her powers of super strength, X-ray vision and super hearing. Meanwhile, Selena uses the omegahedron to throw a love spell on a beefcake landscaper named Ethan (Hart Bochner) and when he bumbles off, sends a bulldozer through Midvale to bring him back. Supergirl saves the town, but the witch’s spell makes Ethan fall in love with Linda. She traces the omegahedron to the old amusement park, but is unable to retrieve it from Selena when Ethan shows up and she has to protect him. Her powers growing stronger, Selena banishes Supergirl to the Phantom Zone. Reunited with the exiled Zaltar in the barren prison dimension, Supergirl looks for a way back to Earth to save both her adopted planet and her home world.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 192 users: 26% for Supergirl

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes. Joe is not a professional curator and may not even show potential as an amateur one, but comments and recommendations for future double features are welcome below.

Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (1979)
Directed by Richard Lester
Written by Allan Burns, based on characters created by William Goldman
Produced by Gabriel Katzka, Steven Bach
115 minutes

The first prequel Hollywood ever cranked out is also the answer to the question of which one remains the best, Butch and Sundance: The Early Days. That may be faint praise in the company of titles like The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas, Exorcist: The Beginning or the Star Wars prequels, but if there absolutely positively had to be another Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, without Paul Newman or Robert Redford — whose characters were shot up by the Bolivian army in the climax of the original — then this belated follow-up is actually pretty good. A blithe screenplay constructed by Allan Burns (co-creator of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda), a solid cast and comic flourishes by director Richard Lester that deftly sidestep parody while providing plenty of grins all add up to a thoroughly enjoyable western adventure.

Part of the fun is the slight of hand that permits Tom Berenger and William Katt to pull off roles originated by Paul Newman and Robert Redford. That’s not saying they’re preferable to Newman and Redford (nobody is) or really recapture their on-screen chemistry (no one can) but Berenger and Katt hold their own and their casting keeps us in the movie rather than throwing us out of it. The Early Days recognizes what made William Goldman’s original script very good: surprises, action that tilts toward the irreverent and colorful banter zinging between the title characters. Collaborating with director of photography László Kovács and art director Jackson De Govia, Richard Lester spared no expense giving the film both visual panache and certain wit. None of it resembles the Old West and the film lacks the female presence Katharine Ross brought to original, but it all works fine.

One year into a prison sentence for horse theft, Robert A. Leroy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy (Tom Berenger) is brought before the governor for a parole hearing. Vouched for by Sheriff Ray Bledsoe (Jeff Corey) — the crusty lawman who arrested him — Butch promises that if set free he will most certainly commit more crimes, but agrees not to in the state of Wyoming. Visiting a casino, Butch has his new pistol stolen by a lightning fast stick up artist named Harry Longabaugh (William Katt). To retrieve his gun, Butch joins the posse of noted lawman and tracker Joe Le Fors (Peter Weller) who gives up the hunt when his men show little inclination to pursue the kid into a rock fortification. Butch stays behind to parlay with Longabaugh, suggesting that his intellect and the kid’s reflexes would make a good team.

Returning to his old hideout, Butch is reunited with cattle rustler O.C. Hanks (Brian Dennehy) before being swept up in a raid by Sheriff Bledsoe. Convinced Butch set him up, O.C. threatens to kill him first chance he gets. Butch and the kid get their feet wet as bandits by knocking over high roller casinos and such. Butch bestows his young partner with the handle Sundance Kid, due to jail time the kid spent in Sundance, Wyoming and their adventures take them through snowbound Telluride and to the farmhouse in Circleville, Utah which Butch occasionally shares with his wife Mary (Jill Eikenberry) and two sons. Life as a citizen doesn’t sit well with Butch and with the help of two bumbling outlaws (John Schuck, Christopher Lloyd), Butch and Sundance attempt to rob a train carrying U.S. Cavalry troops and cash.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 2 users: 100% for Butch and Sundance: The Early Days

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” the programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes. Joe is not a professional curator and may not even show potential as an amateur one, but comments and recommendations for future double features are welcome below.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)
Directed by Michael Cimino
Written by Michael Cimino
Produced by Robert Daley
115 minutes

For everyone who’s wished that Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges could have acted together in the same movie, the good news is that it’s called Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. The GREAT news is that this screwball buddy caper road movie has everything that a fan of drive-in movies could want: bank robbery, fist fighting, fast cars and fast women. If those weren’t enough, Gary Busey (billed as Garey Busey) even shows up. The script by Michael Cimino came to Eastwood in 1972 courtesy their mutual reps at the William Morris Agency. Responding to the offbeat bent of the piece (“Michael must have written it in some hallucinative state” Eastwood joked to biographer Richard Schickel), Malpaso agreed to let Cimino — a Michigan State grad with an MFA in painting from Yale and a successful career directing commercials in New York — make his feature film debut.

One of the innumerable charms of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is that Cimino never seems in a hurry to go anywhere or prove anything here, putting the “idio” in “idiosyncratic” as if the Coen brothers were making a heist flick. Instead of being wed to pulp fiction, the material has a noble innocence to it. Filmed in the towns of Ulm, Fort Benton, Hobson, Augusta and Choteau in the Great Falls vicinity of Montana, it’s one half road movie and one half situation comedy, with four men who have nowhere else to go moving in together, taking day jobs and plotting the score of a lifetime. Whether a credit to the script or to the exuberance of 23-year-old Jeff Bridges, Clint Eastwood has never smiled in a movie as much as he does here. One of the few reflections of the time period it was made is a whimsical theme composed and sung by Paul Williams, “Where Do I Go From Here”.

At the rustic Spirit Lake Idaho Community Church, the sermon of John Doherty (Clint Eastwood) is rudely interrupted when a stranger opens fire and chases the pastor through a field of wheat. A white ’73 Pontiac Trans Am crosses the pastor’s path and he jumps in. The wheelman is a kid who just stole the car and gives the name Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges). Watching the pastor pop his dislocated shoulder back in, the kid deduces that this is no ordinary clergyman. Stealing a ‘73 Buick Rivera, the pastor tires of grand theft auto and parts ways with Lightfoot, only to spot two more associates, bank robbers Red Leary (George Kennedy) and Eddie Goody (Geoffrey Lewis). The pastor changes his mind about riding shotgun with Lightfoot and even accepts the company of two women (Catherine Bach, June Fairchild) the kid picks up in town.

After Red comes gunning for the duo, the pastor reveals that he’s a Korean War veteran answering to the name Thunderbolt. A bank robber by vocation, Thunderbolt punctured the vault of an armored car company with a cannon firing 20mm artillery shells; the mastermind of his gang hid the money behind the blackboard of an old schoolhouse, but upon his death, only Thunderbolt knows where the loot is stashed. Believing he ripped them off, Red and Goody want Thunderbolt dead, but he explains to them that the schoolhouse and the loot have vanished. Lightfoot infects the thieves with the idea of hitting the same armored company again. The four men move in together and take day jobs to raise seed money for the job, devised more as an antidote to boredom and an excuse to build camaraderie than anything else.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 89 users: 86% for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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Unforgiven (1992)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by David Webb Peoples
Produced by Clint Eastwood
131 minutes

The Outlaw Josey Wales is the best material Clint Eastwood ever lucked into, but this Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Best Director of 1992 is from sunrise to sunset the best screenplay Eastwood has yet filmed. Known as The Cut-Whore Killings when David Webb Peoples wrote it in 1976, Malpaso took a look at the script five years later. The writing was so digressive and subject matter so reprehensible that story editor Sonia Chernus referred to it as “trash”, but when Eastwood took a look much later as a sample of Peoples’ writing, he optioned the script and held onto it until the time was right to make the film. As savage and foreboding as any indie made that decade by directors half his age, this western is a potent exploration of the roots of violence; elegantly written, boldly photographed and magnificently performed.

Rationing the number of fatalities, Unforgiven is explicit in wanting to make the viewer actually feel something for every felled body. Despite the relative lack of gunplay, the deeper we get into the story, the more it crackles with suspense. The characters are compelling — with Eastwood essentially playing a villain revisited 20 years down the road — and the dialogue has an otherworldly splendor, as if Peoples traveled back in time to take notes. Richard Harris and Gene Hackman deliver monologues as rapturous as any torn from a Quentin Tarantino script and like a Tarantino film, when the talking stops and the bullets fly, we aren’t disappointed. Jack N. Green washes the film in thunderstorm gray while the town of Big Whiskey — built in Alberta, Canada by Henry Bumstead — is one of the most visually compelling frontier villages ever put on film.

As a rainstorm pelts the town of “Big Whiskey”, Wyoming in 1880, a cowpoke slashes the face of Delilah Fitzgerald (Anna Thomson) for a slight against his manhood. Sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) considers bullwhipping the assailant and his partner, but when the cut whore’s employer (Anthony James) protests the assault as destruction of property, Little Bill fines the cowpokes in ponies instead. Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher) pools together the savings of the working girls to buy their own retribution. Tending to his pigs, retired mercenary William Munny (Clint Eastwood) receives a visit from the self-proclaimed Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett), nephew of a desperado he once rode with. Invited by the kid to partner with him in the murder for hire, Munny maintains that his dearly departed wife cured him of that “drink and wickedness.”

Changing his mind, Munny picks up his pistols and climbs back on a horse for the first time in 11 years. He stops off at the farm of his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) and recruits him to participate in the killings. Gunslinger-for-hire English Bob (Richard Harris) and his “biographer” W.W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek) arrive in Big Whiskey ahead of them to collect the reward money, only to have Little Bill and his deputies violently yank away the welcome mat. Amused by Mr. Beauchamp’s frontier fiction posing as fact, the sadistic sheriff sets him straight on how law & order out west really works. Arriving in town, Munny has a hurt put on him by Little Bill, but is able to regroup with Ned and the kid to finish the job. One of them falls prey to Little Bill’s posse, prompting Munny to pay a visit to Big Whiskey for his own retribution.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 55 users: 96% for Unforgiven

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 82 for Unforgiven

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The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Screenplay by Philip Kaufman (as Phil Kaufman) and Sonia Chernus, based on the novel Gone To Texas by Forrest Carter
Produced by Robert Daley
135 minutes

Paul Newman is Cool Hand Luke, Steve McQueen is Bullitt and Clint Eastwood’s screen persona is personified by Josey Wales. The finest material he ever chanced upon originated with Forrest Carter, who had approximately 75 copies of a novel then titled The Rebel Outlaw Josey Wales printed by Whipporwill Publishers in Alabama. Without knowing any better, Carter mailed a copy to Malpaso, where the book would’ve been returned without being read if not for a soulful cover letter that struck producer Robert Daley. Eventually giving the novel a read, Daley absorbed it one sitting and recommended it to Eastwood, who was game to make the movie. Malpaso story editor Sonia Chernus asked to write the adaptation, which was injected with greater suspense by Philip Kaufman, who Eastwood tapped to direct before replacing several days into filming.

When talking about The Outlaw Josey Wales, the question is: What doesn’t the film do masterfully? The colorful saga stretches from farmland to battlefield, the Missouri River to the Indian Nations, a windswept outpost in Texas to an abandoned silver town where ghosts of war catch up to Wales. The characters are so compelling that even roles taken by Chief Dan George, Sam Bottoms or John Vernon (playing a non-asshole for once!) have the fullness of the heroes in any other movie. The script is a tapestry of deliciously crafted dialogue, goofy wit, idealistic spirit and riveting action. For all its frontier excitement, The Outlaw Josey Wales is ultimately an antidote to war, implying that communities are capable of living together by making peace that their governments seem unable or unwilling to. This is as vital a message for today as it was for the Bicentennial. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Wild Bunch aside, it’s the best western ever made.

On a plot of dirt in Missouri, farmer Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood) stands helpless to protect his wife and son from a marauding Union outfit known as the Redlegs. Wales takes up arms for the Confederacy and once the war is lost, becomes the only member of his unit to reject the offer of commanding officer Fletcher (John Vernon), who’s accommodated disarmament terms with the Union. Fletcher is betrayed when the bloodthirsty Captain Terrill (Bill McKinney) summarily executes the men he’s turned in, but is well compensated to ride along with the Redlegs in the manhunt for Josey Wales and a young wounded rebel (Sam Bottoms). Wales and the boy outsmart the Redlegs at a ferry crossing, then a pair of bounty hunters in a marsh, but his young traveling companion succumbs to his wound before they can reach the safety of the Indian Nations.

Resigned to returning to Missouri to settle up with Fletcher, Wales runs into a wily old Cherokee (Chief Dan George) headed to Mexico to join others who refused to surrender. At a trading post, Wales inherits a Navajo woman (Geraldine Keams) he rescues from servitude. The trio beat it through Texas with Redlegs on their tail, stopping to assist Kansas pilgrims set upon by bandits. The two survivors — punchy Grandma Sarah (Paula Trueman) and her odd granddaughter Laura (Sondra Locke) — join Wales next. Followed by Comanche warriors, the band reaches the dried up silver town of Santa Rio, whose residents (Matt Clark, Royal Dano, Joyce Jameson) are ecstatic to receive settlers. Wales brokers peace with Comanche chief Ten Bears (Will Sampson) whose land they build on, but when a bounty hunter tips the Redlegs off to Wales’ location, the war finally catches up to him.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 31 users: 97% for The Outlaw Josey Wales

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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A Perfect World (1993)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by John Lee Hancock
Produced by Mark Johnson, David Valdes
138 minutes

Thrown into theaters over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in a bid to exploit the then box office popularity of its star Kevin Costner, A Perfect World wasn’t the movie that families who’d gobbled snowflake mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce were looking to order for dessert; Mrs. Doubtfire satisfied those cravings. A Perfect World began as screenplay Baylor Law School grad turned playwright John Lee Hancock submitted as a writing sample to Clint Eastwood, who not only loved the writing but chose to direct it as his follow-up to Unforgiven. While the action rolls across the picturesque Texas Hill Country and ropes us into believing that this will be a diverting caper, it offers little in the way of instant gratification, being a harsh but resplendent drama about an escaped convict and a boy slowing down the hands of time, both putting off their tenuous future to make something of the present.

Eastwood’s best work as a director uses the finest contemporary actors and technology while striking a contemplative, character driven tempo. These are the best 1960s movies being made today and A Perfect World is a wonderful example of that aesthetic, a cousin to Hud, with a no good bastard at its center, an impressionable boy on the edges and the wide open spaces of Texas as its stage. Costner never possessed the sexual charisma of Paul Newman and what charm he started with in movies like Silverado was beginning to dim here, but A Perfect World isn’t The Kevin Costner Show. T.J. Lowther was well cast and/or directed to a terrific performance for a child, while the lyrical pace permits us to feast on the vintage set design by Henry Bumstead and luscious camerawork Jack N. Green, revealing a time when escaping society and finding yourself seemed possible on the road.

In Austin circa 1963, 9-year-old Phillip Perry (T.J. Cowther) is prohibited from going trick or treating by his single mother, a Jehovah’s Witness. Meanwhile, convicts Butch Haynes (Kevin Costner) and his cellmate Terry Pugh (Keith Szarabajka) escape from prison. Planning to go separate ways once they steal the Ford that Butch covets as a getaway vehicle, Pugh invades Philip’s home. The jailbird draws so much attention accosting his mother that Butch has to take Philip hostage to ensure their escape. The manhunt is led by Texas Rangers Chief Red Garnett (Clint Eastwood), who takes to the roads of the Hill Country in a state of the art Airglide trailer with a Texas Ranger (Leo Burmester), a slick FBI agent (Bradley Whitford) and a criminologist (Laura Dern) from Huntsville sent by the governor to assist.

Uncommonly bright for a ward of the state that grew up in a New Orleans whorehouse, Butch sees something of his own neglected childhood in Phillip and befriends him. When Pugh threatens the boy, Butch cuts his old cellmate loose in a cornfield. Given opportunity to escape, Phillip instead accompanies Butch west. They steal a car, evade an angry farmer and pick up new clothes and a Halloween costume for Phillip in a small town department store, where the duo is almost apprehended by the law. The pair runs across Garnett and company on a back road and in the chase that ensues, the Rangers ends up stranded in a thicket. Butch harbors the fantasy of heading for Alaska, but Phillip begins to miss home. Butch’s capacity for violence and the efforts of Red Garnett ultimately bring their fool’s errand to an end.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 26 users: 85% for A Perfect World

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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Heartbreak Ridge (1986)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by James Carabatsos and Dennis Hackin (uncredited) and Joseph Stinson (uncredited)
Produced by Clint Eastwood
130 minutes

Firing locker room trash talk with the repetition and accuracy of a machine gun, Heartbreak Ridge is loaded with more R-rated one-liners than the careers of all the male action stars you could name combined. James Carabatsos wrote a first draft, which was doctored by the authors of the goofiest film Eastwood ever made (Bronco Billy) and the one with the greatest line of dialogue in action movie history (Sudden Impact), Dennis Hackin and Joseph Stinson, respectively. Greeted with dissent by some army veterans who maintained that the Marines never engaged Heartbreak Ridge and by a Marine Corps which did not square with the film’s language or Gunny Highway’s training techniques, Heartbreak Ridge may be trying to fit a size 12 foot into a shoe two sizes too small, but reality aside, it’s one of the more entertaining movies Clint Eastwood ever made.

The combat sequences — which utilize the U.S. military intervention in Grenada that the United Nations later voted illegal — are on auto-pilot, reflecting neither the terror of combat or hinting at any real consequences for the combatants. Heartbreak Ridge was the last in a line of war movies going back to John Wayne fighting Injuns in Fort Apache where the enemy was evil and when shot, went down like a bowling pin. For those able to cotton to the film’s outdated approach, its macho bluster is hard to resist. With an opening line of “I been pumping pussy since Christ was a corporal” the script never apologizes for being about a crusty Marine gunny and never lets up. Underneath lies a character that fits Eastwood’s screen persona like a glove, a man whose distaste for authority is matched by a loyalty to the ideals of that authority. Showing real signs of age, Eastwood gave what feels like the richest performance up to that point in his career.

In 1983, Marine Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway (Clint Eastwood) is allowed to walk away from drunk and disorderly charges — including urinating on a police car — due to his distinguished service in both Korea and Vietnam. Despite his contempt for authority and loose tongue, Highway is so gung ho about being a Marine that he earns a transfer back to his old unit: 2nd Recon Battalion, 2nd Marine Division in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Reuniting with a sergeant major (Arlen Dean Snyder) he survived a battle with at the so-called Heartbreak Ridge in Korea when they were army corpsmen, Highway runs afoul with Annapolis football hero Major Malcolm A. Powers (Evertt McGill) who’s displeased as much with Highway’s age and his record of insubordination, commenting, “Well I ask for Marines, the division sends me relics.”

The sloppy recon platoon Gunny Highway is assigned — “The Marines are looking for a few good men. Unfortunately, you ain’t it” — regrets the day they met him. This includes Corporal “Stitch” Jones (Mario Van Peebles), a loudmouth who ripped Highway off on the bus ride to Lejeune. Accustomed to serving as target practice for 1^st Platoon, Recon is whipped into combat shape by Highway. He has less success rebuilding a relationship with his ex-wife Aggie (Marsha Mason), a barmaid who tired of waiting at home for Highway to return from whatever war zone he volunteered for. Termed an “0-0-1” by Powers — 0 wins, 1 tie for Korea, 1 loss for Vietnam — Highway gets a shot at redemption when the Marines are deployed to Grenada to free American medical students stranded by a Communist coup d’état on that Caribbean island.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 12 users: 83% for Heartbreak Ridge

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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